One 78-year-old Joplin, Missouri, woman found love after the death of her second husband after a tornado leveled her city. What’s more unusual than her new love being linked to the incident, however, is who the new love was.
The same man from whom she’d decided to file for divorce from years earlier.
An Unusual Second Meeting
Once they’d settled the divorce papers, life paths took Sally Adams and Paul Palmer in different directions, and kept them apart for decades.
But one night in 2011, Adams took refuge in her basement as a massive tornado tore through her hometown. When she emerged from the tornado shelter, she looked around and saw that she had nothing left.
“My home was gone, my car was gone, I had no family there and you could not find a place to live there; you couldn’t even find a motel room,” Adams said.
Luckily, Adams had recently reconnected with her ex-husband, Paul Palmer, following the death of her second husband. Her ex then issued a bold proposal. “She didn’t have any family there and she didn’t have a place to live so I sort of opened the door and said, ‘Why don’t you move down here to Tennessee?’”
Adams took him up on the offer, and soon the couple were remarried. Of the tornado, Adams jokes, “It blew me down here.”
Reconnecting With An Ex
We know that Adams’ story is the exception to the rule, but it’s a gentle and touching reminder of how beneficial a friendship with your ex can be, even after you’ve finalized the divorce forms.
While two unwanted circumstances had to happen to bring Adams and Palmer back together, the point of the story isn’t to stay friends with your ex so maybe one day you can get back with them.
No, to us, the message is this: always do good even when it’s hard. You never know how it might come back to you later in life when you need it the most.
Good luck to Adams and Palmer, and if you’re dealing with the tension surrounding divorce, try to keep a positive attitude.